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Exalted First Time

So I let my friend talk me into playing Exalted and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know he likes systems that let you build characters with godlike powers, and that's not really my thing. However, I want to give Exalted a fair go, so what should I know to make sure I'm getting the full experience and not a half baked, misleading campaign?

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Rorrik

So I let my friend talk me into playing Exalted and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know he likes systems that let you build characters with godlike powers, and that's not really my thing. However, I want to give Exalted a fair go, so what should I know to make sure I'm getting the full experience and not a half baked, misleading campaign?

I'm playing a Night with Open Hand and Ranged, whatever that means.

I don't understand that last sentence.

If your Exalted campaign is "we play these guys with superpowers and bash in the skulls of bad guys", your friend is doing it wrong. Well, unless you're playing an Alchemicals game and are just fighting Gremlins, or a standard game and are just staying near the bordermarches fighting Wyld barbarians and defending border tribes and villages. The point of Exalted is ramifications, in a specific setting. You're not just a guy who has the ability to kill fifty warriors as an unoptimized starting character. You're a guy who's supposed to rally towns and form a nation, who will grow increasingly insane over the span of his millenia-long lifespan, and despite his human form, will become less human mentally as an elder exalt than the patropoli and metropoli of Autochthonia. You're not just a guy who can grow ten feet tall, with six arms, a speed boost, and the ability to shoot lasers from your fists (I love Devil-Tyrant Avatar Shintai and Revlid's mutations). You're a guy who took a deal with the devil, decided to just screw it and leave, and has the potential to become an immortal being of tremendous power.

Re: Exalted First Time

Even if you think a simple, straightforward story of superheroing is the lowest form of entertainment, sometimes it is the thing that draws in someone who will become a great asset to and lover of more complex stories.

Exalted is totally usable for a lot of different kinds of games. You don't even have to play the kinds you don't like, if you don't want to!

what I am interested in is far more complex and nuanced than something you can define in so few words.

Re: Exalted First Time

However, it is worth nothing that Exalted is ideally suited to character dramas of an "epics of myth and legend" sort, but can also easily accommodate smaller, more personal dramas as well. It's easier to find things to like in the game if one knows better what one wants out of it, because there is a lot to choose from. (This last may not be much of a factor in light of your apparent relationship with the prospective Storyteller.)

what I am interested in is far more complex and nuanced than something you can define in so few words.

Re: Exalted First Time

Hmm... OP, you say you're playing a Night caste, but are you sure you want to? Exalted is great in my mind because it's not a combat/adventure engine all the time. As a night, you'd be a thief, assassin, rogue, inquisitor, spy, or some other character relying largely on subtlety and stealth. Which is good fun. But exalted also lets you be a warrior, orator, diplomat, inventor, sorcerer, or anything else. Anything a human does, an exalt can do the same only dialed up to 11 with magical powers. And they can do many things humans can't. If you do want to be a Night caste, you're not pigeonholed of course: you get as many favored abilities as ones set by your caste and can mix and match. I suggest understanding what kind of character you want, and what you want to play. Talk it over with your storyteller and partymates.

Re: Exalted First Time

Not any more so than a Twilight is automatically a sorcerer or crafter, or an Eclipse a horseman or sailor.

My last Night Caste was a scavenger-lord and a prince, for instance.

Indeed. Also, OP, could you give us some more details?

Er... yes. That's why I specified "or some other character relying on subtlety." Night exaltation only goes to those who favor subtlety and unconventional solutions. Same as twilights, while not automatically crafters or sorcerers, are all scholars of some variety. You can have other interests and methods, but you have to have that caste requirement to some degree.

As for having other interests (like being a prince and scavenger lord), that's why I mentioned characters aren't pigeonholed by their caste.

Re: Exalted First Time

Okay, I've actually started looking at the character sheet and got a better explanation of how things work. I'm a Night Caste, and my favored skills are Martial Arts, Thrown, Socialize, Presence, and Survival. I'm thinking of making my character's personal goal to increase the population of powerful beings by being a womanizing lovable rogue, though I don't know what the campaign is going to be, this Storyteller is mostly focused on epic sized combats and I imagine that s what he intends to get out of this game. Some of the other players are more role playing focused and I think the Zenith and I will be able to keep things interesting story wise.

I just want to be sure I know what a player needs to do to help guide things in a myth and legend lore building direction.

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Rorrik

I'm thinking of making my character's personal goal to increase the population of powerful beings by being a womanizing lovable rogue, though I don't know what the campaign is going to be, this Storyteller is mostly focused on epic sized combats and I imagine that s what he intends to get out of this game.

That's not a suitable Motivation. It is, however, a suitable side goal.

It's also what my characters do in their downtime. Except Alchemicals, they're infertile.

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Jade Dragon

That's not a suitable Motivation. It is, however, a suitable side goal.

Why in heavens is this not 'suitable' as a Motivation? It's a little odd, to want in-character to have a ton of children with a lot of different women for some abstract idea of increasing power levels, but why is it unsuitable as a Motivation?

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Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Jerthanis

Why in heavens is this not 'suitable' as a Motivation? It's a little odd, to want in-character to have a ton of children with a lot of different women for some abstract idea of increasing power levels, but why is it unsuitable as a Motivation?

From reading these forums, I think the joke is that every Exalt does that.

Revan avatar by kaptainkrutch.

Originally Posted by Cirrylius

That's how wizards beta test their new animals. If it survives Australia, it's a go. Which in hindsight explains a LOT about Australia.

Re: Exalted First Time

Sigh...

OP: ignore Jerthanis and Jade Dragon. Just do whatever for your motivation. Making everyone half-Solars through pure reproductive prowess? if you consider that epic, go for it. Just…don't get caught up in the probably soon to come motivation debate ok? Just…ignore it please.

Monkey Playwright of the Improbability Drive Fan Club, Regardless, orcs should be people.

Re: Exalted First Time

Same as twilights, while not automatically crafters or sorcerers, are all scholars of some variety.

And that's why the rules for Twilights requires them to have a Lore minimum of 1, right?

Also, only certain definitions of "subtle" could be said to have fit my Night Caste. Sure, he didn't go blazing his caste mark everywhere, but not once in the course of the game did he lie to or openly deceive someone.

A not-so-subtle reminder of what we all are, and why it is pointless to play at anything else. (Thanks to Gnomish Wanderer for the Setite avatar! )

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by TheCountAlucard

And that's why the rules for Twilights requires them to have a Lore minimum of 1, right?

Also, only certain definitions of "subtle" could be said to have fit my Night Caste. Sure, he didn't go blazing his caste mark everywhere, but not once in the course of the game did he lie to or openly deceive someone.

Not all scholars are academic scholars. For example, I once did a twilight who was a martial arts theorist. He had no lore, only a smattering of occult, no craft... He was physical primary. But he was still a scholar of sorts. He collected and created martial arts, and taught them to others. Subtle doesn't necessarily involve lying or stealth, but it does involve unusual solutions not associated with, for example, a dawn caste if your Night is a general. And in addition to the fluff requiring certain approaches and backgrounds of the various castes, the mechanics support at least some distribution of ability within the caste's focuses. If you're playing against both fluff and mechanics, you are doing it wrong. At least partially.

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Lord Raziere

Sigh...

OP: ignore Jerthanis and Jade Dragon. Just do whatever for your motivation. Making everyone half-Solars through pure reproductive prowess? if you consider that epic, go for it. Just…don't get caught up in the probably soon to come motivation debate ok? Just…ignore it please.

Not much chance of that. It's mostly a motivation to make the storyteller queasy and because we consider the canon population of creation to be too low. We said it as a joke and it snowballed until my wife is even playing my pregnant disciple and I took levels in cult.

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Rorrik

Not much chance of that. It's mostly a motivation to make the storyteller queasy and because we consider the canon population of creation to be too low. We said it as a joke and it snowballed until my wife is even playing my pregnant disciple and I took levels in cult.

Lol, okay, this is awesome. I just wasn't sure if you were considering the responsibility/economic/practical consequences of intentionally creating a large number of babies, that's the only reason I remarked on it being odd. Since you are taking them into account, I withdraw calling it odd.

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Re: Exalted First Time

More seriously, what are good motivations? We have one player who is trying to go with an unbeatable on the defense archer Eclipse, but his motivation is mostly cowardice. The Storyteller is saying it's not going to work for a Solar, and I think I understand why, but what sort of motivations are acceptable for a character like that?

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Rorrik

More seriously, what are good motivations? We have one player who is trying to go with an unbeatable on the defense archer Eclipse, but his motivation is mostly cowardice. The Storyteller is saying it's not going to work for a Solar, and I think I understand why, but what sort of motivations are acceptable for a character like that?

Cowardice is a decent motivation. Ever read Ciaphas Cain? Exaltation isn't related to virtue or morality. As long as you are the kind of coward who carries out his fears on an epic scope, you can qualify.

I might, for example, suggest for a born diplomat like most eclipses "Bind together a direction of creation in alliance to destroy my enemies and keep me safe from harm." Valor 1. Fight starts and the other guy looks like he might be able to hit the eclipse, fellow takes off running because, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, he is a dirty coward. But when he's in his element, he mobilizes worlds in the name of saving his own skin.

Re: Exalted First Time

Generally speaking, a "heroic Motivation" is a way in which you intend to use your abilities in a big way. It's things like "Become the richest man alive", or "Reunite the Exalted Host", or "Tear Down House Peleps". A cowardly Motivation could succeed, but ideally an Exalt's Motivation should be active, rather than passive. So a coward might want to "Gain Enough Power That No One Can Destroy Me", but isn't likely to have the Motivation "Avoid Conflict".

You are a Solar. Solar motivations MUST be epic in scope. Simply making more babies is insufficient- partly due to theological stuff involving reincarnation that makes it (sort of) a non-issue.

However, instituting a eugenics program to "exalt" (note the use of lower case there, vice "Exalt") mere mortals to a greater status, in order to allow the men of Creation to stand on there own could not only be an appropriate motivation, but is actively done by large numbers of Lunar exalts.

You ask "what can we do to affect the world," and I will answer you truthfully: everything. Not "anything you wish," but "everything you do." Save a mortal family from Hobgoblins- fairly short and easy combat. One family saved. Word travels from village to village, and perhaps your cult expands. As you continue to adventure, eventually you show up to some pissant little village that proclaims you their god-king.

Merely by existing, you affect the political geography around you.

Edit: Example solar motivations- Forge the barbarians of the North into a mighty war machine and civilization to rival the Realm. Travel the Threshold, binding villages to towns to cities, creating a network of trade and mutual defense, that they might stand against the predations of Creation's enemies. Become the greatest warrior/sorcerer/artificier/negotiator/mac daddy Creation has ever seen. Attain perfection.

Re: Exalted First Time

Originally Posted by Lord Raziere

Ok, this is the most important question you must answer, answer it first:

do you have the Scroll of the Errata? Does HE have the Scroll of Errata?

Also on this, if suffcient of your Exalted books are in PDF form (be that as well as or instead of hardcopy), you may find the Errata as comments to the PDFs files I've made useful, as it puts the errata for a particular rule/charm next to it, as a little comment box.